Alfredo Morabia, MD, PhD, MPH

Morabia completed his undergraduate studies at College Calvin in Geneva in 1971, majoring in Greek and Latin. After receiving his MD from the School of Medicine at the University of Geneva in 1978, Morabia trained in internal medicine at the University Hospital of Geneva and in occupational medicine in Italy. He is board certified in both internal medicine and occupational medicine. In 1986, Morabia received a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation to study at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, where he obtained MPH and PhD degrees in epidemiology, the first such PhD awarded to a Swiss citizen, and an MHS in biostatistics. In August 1990, he became chair of the Clinical Epidemiology Unit at the University Hospital of Geneva, the first epidemiology group ever created in a Swiss hospital and creates the Bus Santé (Health Bus), an on-going health and nutrition survey of the Geneva population, designed after NHANES. Under his leadership, the unit grew into a division, and he was subsequently appointed professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Geneva. In 2009, he was appointed Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He is currently a professor of clinical epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, and a professor of epidemiology at the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment at Queens College, City University of New York. His research domains are urban health and the history of methods. He is the Principal Investigator of a cohort study funded by NIOSH on cardiovascular diseases among men and women who volunteered during the months following the 9/11 attack to clean the debris of the WTC towers. He was supported by the National Library of Medicine to write on the history of epidemiologic and public health methods and concepts. This support resulted in two books: "Enigmas of Health and Disease: How Epidemiology Contributes to Unravel Scientific Mysteries," published by Columbia University Press in 2014, and "The Public Health Approach: Population Thinking from the Black Death to COVID-19," published on October 17, 2023, by Johns Hopkins University Press. Dr. Morabia lectures and teaches on the history of epidemiology and public health internationally in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Since 2015, Alfredo Morabia has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) and Editor Emeritus of "Epidemiology in History" at the American Journal of Epidemiology.